Zoom Storytime
Never did I ever think I would do storytime on a screen. I want to see those sweet faces, get the high-fives and hugs, watch their delight in a story’s twists and turns. However…needs must!
storytime
Nonfiction Storytime, Part 3
In my experience, you can elevate the learning experience with nonfiction books through the development of activities that connect with a specific topic or the theme of your program.
Nonfiction to the Rescue, Part 2
By featuring both nonfiction and fiction during storytime, you provide children an opportunity to experience the contrast between what is real and what is imaginative. Both are important for a successful reading experience. Here are 18 of my favorite nonfiction books to use in storytime programs.
Nonfiction to the Rescue, Part 1
As a children’s librarian, a primary goal for me is to help children embrace imagination through books, from imagining we are superheroes to going on a hunt to find a bear, flying in the sky, exploring a new land, to diving deep in the ocean. For some time however, including nonfiction titles in my programs has been a top request from parents and educators.
Almost Time
I’ve been waiting for Elizabeth Stickney and Gary D. Schmidt’s Almost Time for quite awhile. Seems appropriate — it’s a book about waiting, after all. I read very early drafts of it years ago, so long ago that I can hardly recall details — only that it’s about the making of maple syrup. What I discovered upon reading it in published form is that in addition to being about the making of maple syrup, this book is also about the solace found in waiting and working together.… more
Storytime in the Time of Coronavirus
I’ve had the great joy these last few weeks of pulling together “distanced” storytimes for a few families who could use a half hour of sitting on the couch and letting someone else entertain and interact with the kids. This has been a stretch for me. Though I’m grateful for all of the apps and platforms that allow us to see and talk virtually — during this time, especially — I would not choose to do storytime this way.… more
The Rabbit Listened
In my current regular storytime group, I have a little one who insists he has whatever book I’m reading at his house, too. I hold up a book and he jumps in excitement. “I have that book at my house!” he says, while his parents shake their head behind him. I tease him saying, “We must have exactly the same bookshelves.”… more
Timeless Tales Program
Creating a Connected Community of Readers: Intergenerational Storytime
After seeing a handful of articles about nursing homes opening up preschools in a shared space, as well as the benefits from this partnership, I wanted to find a way to create the same intergenerational connection in a library setting. We already had a relationship with our local retirement home as our Circulation Supervisor does monthly outreach and book checkouts for the residents, so I approached their staff with the idea.… more
Heidi Bread
I realized (again) over the winter holidays this year that much of holiday frivolity centers on food. I’d have it no other way, myself, but I must say that after a couple/few weeks of eating grand meals, too many sweets, and grabbing tea/coffee more often than usual, I crave simplicity when I sit down for lunch in the middle of a writing day.… more
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
“Hey! Unto you a child is born!”
I think of this line each and every Christmas Eve when the Christmas story according to Luke’s Gospel is read. If I’m the one doing the reading, and you were to pay close attention, you’d probably notice that I have to take a nano-second pause so as to drop the “Hey!” and read it “straight.”… more
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
In my storytime bag this past month I’ve been carrying The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I don’t always use it, but I like having it with me — I know it will always work. When I pull this book out of the bag, there are smiles, clapping sometimes, and always a chorus of “I have that book!”
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is fifty years old this year.… more
Bee-bim Bop
I’ve been on the storytime circuit this last month as I have a new picture book of my very own. Readers of this column know how much I adore storytime, so wherever I’ve gone to read my book, I’ve asked if I can do a whole storytime, the better to read other picture books, as well. Usually the regular beleaguered storytime readers are happy to have this happen.… more
Olive, The Other Reindeer
I’m writing this on the birthday of my dear friend, Molly. She is one of my bestest friends from college days. It’s a big birthday — well worth celebrating, which she’ll do next week with a rollerskating party complete with musical hits from the 1980’s. This is very Molly — the kids immediately said, “Only Molly!”
Molly is, quite possibly, the coolest of our friends.… more
The Christmas Alphabet
When our kids were small and we were building our Christmas book collection, the night on which we brought out the holiday books that had been in storage since the previous year was always a very special night.
With #1 Son, this was but a handful of books at first; but once we added Darling Daughter to the family, and St.… more
The Quiltmaker’s Journey
Earlier this week I pulled out our small stash of Thanksgiving picture books. The kids are older now, but they seem to like it when the old favorites come out. I got lost, as I always do, in The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbeau, illustrated by Gail de Marcken. I’ve written about that book for Red Reading Boots — you can find that here.… more
The Princess and Her Panther
Last week, I was working on my WIP, a sprawling mess of a novel. I’d hit a rough patch and I set myself the assignment to just type away for ten minutes — ten minutes of nonstop typing just to Get Words Down — I wouldn’t let my fingers stop. I simply needed some words to work with, I told myself.
I do not usually resort to this, but it was not a particularly good writing day.… more
The BIG Umbrella
I am extraordinarily lucky in that I have a group of wee ones who join me for storytime most weeks. They’re little — age three and under, with several babies in the mix — so we don’t tell long stories or read great doorstopper books. But with picture books, some of the best ones are pretty spare in terms of words.… more
The Giant Jam Sandwich
Recently, I was invited to a baby shower. I love shopping for baby showers, because I almost always give books and knit a wee little hat — two of my most favorite things. I had the hat all done except for the top little curly-cues, but I was fresh out of board books and so went on a happy little jaunt to one of my local bookstores.… more
Waiting
I had the pleasure this past weekend of accompanying an energetic eight-year-old boy down Washington Avenue on the University of Minnesota campus. We were on foot — his feet faster than the rest in our party, but we easily caught up at each of the pedestrian intersections because he stopped at the light at each and every one.… more
Pablo and Birdy
There are books I read with my eyes leaking beginning to end. Counting by Sevens…Swallows and Amazons…The View From Saturday…Because of Winn Dixie…Orbiting Jupiter…. I don’t mean to say these books make me cry — that’s another category, the ones that make you ugly cry so you can’t read it outloud. Rather, these leaky-eye books are stories read through a watery prism from the first page on.… more
The Hate You Give
This past weekend, Darling Daughter and I participated in a parent-teen book discussion about The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. This book has won many awards, received fantastic reviews, and is a hot topic of discussion in both the book and teen world — especially where those worlds overlap. It’s about the aftermath of a police shooting of an unarmed black teen.… more
A Porcupine Named Fluffy
It’s Read Across America Week this week and I had the privilege of hauling a bag of books to a local elementary school and reading to five different classes — K‑2nd grade — last Tuesday. A truly wonderful way to spend the afternoon, I must say.
#1 Son’s 21st birthday was Tuesday, which made me all nostalgic for the days of picture books, and so I’d packed a bag full of his long-ago favorites (and a couple newer ones, too).… more
The Human Alphabet
At my local library, a couple of weeks ago, I flipped through the books that were for sale by the Friends of the Library. These are mostly books that have been removed from the shelves for one reason or another. The kids’ books cost $.50—fifty cents, people! I’ve found some great ones in these bins.
The find this time: Pilobolus Dance Company’s The Human Alphabet.… more
The Pushcart War
I first heard of Jean Merrill’s The Pushcart War in grad school. I read it because a fellow student spoke with absolute glee about it. I’ve not heard a book recommended with such laughter and vigor before or since. And I fell into the book just as she insisted I would. Fell, I tell you. Lost my head, really.
My kids did, too.… more
A Wrinkle in Time
It was a dark and stormy night.
When I read this aloud one chilly fall evening on the porch to my kids, I laughed out loud. It was Banned Books week and we were “celebrating” by reading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, one of the perennial repeaters on banned books lists. #1 Son was in fourth grade, which is when I’d been introduced to A Wrinkle in Time.… more
The Grinch
I’m just going to say it. Go on the record.
I do not like The Grinch. I do not like the book. I do not like the character. I do not like the story of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. I do not like the brilliant theater productions of the story (though I acknowledge the brilliance.) I do not like the TV special, which I grew up watching, and which I did not let my kids watch.… more
Thanksgiving Tea
The week before Thanksgiving I was part of a wonderful Thanksgiving-themed Storytime. Excellent books were read: Otis Gives Thanks by Loren Long and Thankful by Eileen Spinelli. We sang through There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Turkey by Lucille Colandro, and Simple Gifts by Chris Raschka. All was going swimmingly — beautiful children, rapt and smiling. They were very young, but you could tell they were read to regularly.… more
Calvin Can’t Fly
When I was doing storytime weekly, a book about a bookworm starling was in my regular rotation. Yes, you read that right — a Bookworm Starling. That’s exactly what Calvin (the starling) is — a bookworm. And that is his shame — his cousins call him “nerdie birdie,” “geeky beaky,” and “bookworm.” Unusual (gently derogatory) labels for a starling. Not that it deters Calvin — he mostly shrugs and turns the page.… more